Mubarek killer wrote about intent to murder

Zahid Mubarek’s killer Robert Stewart wrote a letter
saying he could commit “the first murder of the
millennium” just months before killing Mubarek, an inquiry
has heard, writes Maria Ahmed.

The public inquiry into the murder at Feltham young
offender’s institution (YOI) was told Stewart wrote the
letter to his friend Travis, who had received a life sentence for
the murder of an inmate at Stoke Heath YOI in 1998.

Stewart was “by the side” of Travis at the time of
the fatal stabbing in a cookery class, and was arrested but
released without charge, the inquiry heard.

Dexter Dias, counsel for the Mubarek family, read out the letter
which was sent from Stewart in Hindley YOI in Wigan to Travis in
November, 1999.

Stewart wrote: “Everyone thinks I am next. Let’s
wait and see. If I get out in four weeks it could be the first
murder of the millennium”.

The police obtained the letter from Travis after Stewart
battered Mubarek to death at Feltham in March 2000, the inquiry
heard.

In another letter to Travis, Stewart wrote that he had got an
orderly job in a cooking class at Hindley handing knives, despite
previously having committed attacks with a piece of wood and a
plastic knife.

Dias asked Stewart’s probation officer at Hindley YOI
Joyce O’Mara whether it was a good idea that Stewart was
given such a post.

“Here we have Stewart being involved, implicated in one
incident involving a knife murder. He then has stabbed someone in
the eye with a sharp instrument and in Hindley, on this sentence,
he is an orderly handling knives all day. Does that not seem
madness to you?”

“It most certainly does”, replied O’Mara.

She told the inquiry that she would have alerted the security
department if she had known about the letters.

The inquiry continues.